


Here Come Those Santa Ana Winds Again

by LilacOunce



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate, Animorphs - Sarifel (B-Team)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Drama, Fanfiction of Fanfiction, Gen, My First Fanfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 15:33:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20473355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilacOunce/pseuds/LilacOunce
Summary: Set in Sarifel's "Something Better" Animorphs AU: Tobias takes the little kids out for a practice flight, and they banter. Evidently everyone has a little more on his mind than we imagined. And the Santa Ana winds make "fwooom" noises. Jess narrates.





	Here Come Those Santa Ana Winds Again

**Author's Note:**

> “Animorphs” owned by Scholastic and K.A. Applegate. Additional OCs – the B-team – Jess, Benjamin, Nissim, and Kyle, aside from David, come from Sarifel-Corrisafid-Ilxhel’s “Something Better,” one of my favorite scenarios of one of my favorite franchises. I wrote this as sort of a test to find Jess’ voice, and it got big. He was anxious about writing her and I want to sort of… demystify her for him.
> 
> Here's the story they come from: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17693258/chapters/41734556

_My name is Jess._

I can’t tell you what that stands for, just know it’s not short for Jessica. It’s sort of the nickname I got when I was a kid at soccer practice, and the teacher called me “Jess’ka.” He just couldn’t be bothered to pronounce it. My name doesn’t even have any of the aspirated consonants that English speakers have a tough time on.

Even if I told you my initials were J.S.K, you still wouldn’t be able to pick me out of the Koreatown phone book. You probably wouldn’t be able, especially if you’re white, to pick me out of a police lineup, and I’m not giving you any other details. I know firsthand how it can be easy to pick up identity from little clues. That’s how I found the Animorphs to begin with. They’ve already given you enough little clues to know we’re in socal. And the events of my journals are clearly Southern California things.

Long story and you should read everyone else’s posts. Earth is being invaded by aliens. They’re little slugs called “yeerks” who control your brain. Only line of defense is us – teenagers who can turn into birds (and other things but really mostly birds. They’re too _useful._) and fight space crimes.

The A-team – Jake, Cassie, Marco, Rachel, and Tobias - got the power by touching a cube held by a dying Andalite prince. Those are the good guys, I’m told. The prince’s brother Ax joined them later. Then, about a year after the first contact, a kid named David at their school found that cube, and showed it to his spy friend Kyle and they hid the cube. When trained birds tried to steal the cube, they set up cameras and caught them demorphing, and handed them to Kyle’s friend Benjamin to develop the film.

Dangerously… Benjamin was a Controller. That’s one of the people with the yeerk in their heads. He went to meetings of the “Sharing,” the Yeerks’ cover organization. Except both Benjamin and his yeerk Nissim didn’t like the empire and wanted to fight it. How can you be a double agent forever? It felt _crazy_ dangerous. But the A-team just hated this. They fight Yeerks. They don’t team up.

I’d call them foolish. Before they’re discovered, they can use their extingencies to end the war. They know things no one else can. And when you know things, you can use the information to your advantage… we’re soldiers and super spies.

I joined due to events I’d rather not get into here. Suffice to say I’m the new kid among new kids. And I found this place not by finding a cube or an Andalite. I just got suspicious of my friends in the Sharing and I trailed them and made some deductions, and whaddaya know, it turns out Benjamin in the Sharing is part of a secret group.

They couldn’t leave me defenseless with my knowing this. But I’m told it was a scary close vote how much they could trust me. What they _do_ know is I find out secrets.

But they have the cube. So, I touched it… and I touched a merlin, the tiny bird of prey the rest of the B-team uses… and some other things… and now I can turn into them.

Still, it makes my brain hurt. They’ve all been to _space._ They’ve been to the bottom of the ocean. They’ll go to frickin’ _Atlantis _one of these days. All I can do is track people and help be a spy and do spy things. Or I can do detective stuff, and be Sherlock Holmes with less cocaine.

Uh, back to speed. There are morph rules. There’s a two hour limit, otherwise you’ll get stuck. Nissim and Tobias wear watches to make sure, and Ax can keep perfect time in his head, for alien reasons. They don’t let me get very close to Ax. Curious as I am about him, I have so many questions that he’s not allowed to answer.

The reason Tobias can wear one is that he got stuck. He’s always a hawk now, a red-tailed one. He can morph back for some reason (I gotta ask him how one of these days), but his normal body is a hawk and maybe that’s why everyone is birds so often, is so he doesn’t get left out? Besides the fact that flying is awesome.

Sunday. Parents at church, older brother at work at the restaurant, and the little kids were with my folks sweating in the august pews. I stayed behind and tried to catch up on my reading. It was tough, because I kept getting distracted. I wanted to know more about the jazz age than what this _jerk_ Nick was saying. Well, not a jerk. That was the problem. He can be friends with the jerk, and the racist, and the… whatever. They live in eggs. Gatsby was really grinding me, I wanted to look up whatever spot this was based off of, who these people were in real life. I wanted to know more than just what was on the page. I do this a lot.

I’m not studious. I’m _curious._ I don’t know how much you know about Asian stereotypes, but some people might mistake the latter for the former. And you should know I’m not good at following orders when there’s… _discoveries_ to make.

<Jess!>

I recognized that call inside my head. When people morph, we can talk telepathically, which is awesome, though I don’t know why the Andalites made it so, if they could already talk telepathically… still, imagine our adventures if we couldn’t talk. The author of this fanfiction is only good at banter and bizarre simile. Just like Fitzgerald. I didn’t need another reason, I put down the book and ran to the kitchen in the back.

<Jess! It’s Tobias! We’re headed to your porch. Mandatory flying session. If you can hear me, rustle the curtains in your back window. Or wave.>

I had told them they had to go by the wooden stairs in the back. Our apartment was on the third story and there wasn’t a good way out otherwise. But it was still a pretty open area. Anyone from across the way could be looking out the window. How jealous I was of the suburb kids, not that I’d ever want to live there, and both for the same reason: the soul-crushing emptiness of the streets, houses, and the people. The upside was if you morphed, or just did strange animal things, odds were, fewer witnesses. And I’ve learned that most Californians don’t know “normal animal behavior” from a hole in their head. (Ironically, it’s only safe from Controllers as long as they think we’re all Andalites, since Andalites would never live somewhere so crowded, but I’m rambling…)

I stepped out the door and waved, and enunciated with my lips very broadly. _“Here. You guys fly over here one by one and I’ll hide you.”_ Someday I should learn sign language. It would come in handy at times like this.

They put on a good performance. To a bird-watcher, it looked like a hawk assaulting a flock of Merlins, chasing them into the little porch at back of the stairs. It was cramped but it still held our laundry rack full of towels, a little picnic table, my dad’s charcoal grill, and my mom’s tomato and basil plants. Amazing what you can fit into 30 square feet of poplar planks. The stairs needed better repair, but you can guess how often the landlord came to fix that. Anyway, I had to get them out of sight. I moved the laundry rack and lowered part of the scrim so that from three angles – left, right and in front – the picnic table was hidden from view.

Three merlins came together and settled on the edge of the table. They ruffled their feathers. One of them – probably David – carried his head really proudly as if trying to be really big. I only counted three.

“Is Nissim in Benjamin right now?” I asked as Tobias flew in behind them.

<Benjamin is manning the lemonade stand at a Sharing-organized ball game. I have come because they will not notice me missing.> Nissim was the only one who was bigger as a Merlin in his natural form. His voice was high and squeaky and… really. That wasn’t the only reason. Normally he’s a tiny, deaf, dumb and blind slug who dehydrates in seconds. When he’s a bird, it’s like he’s a real earth being and he can not only fly… but see. When I look at him, I understand what my parents feel about Jesus, but it’s an actual, explainable miracle right in front of my eyes, with causes and effects and everything. That doesn’t lessen the joy of watching someone see the world for almost the first time with their own two eyes.

<I’m proud of him,> Kyle spoke up. <He wouldn’t used to have it in him to pass as a controller without outside help, but he’s getting… courageous.> Kyle and Benjamin mean a lot to each other, if you catch my drift, and Benjamin is shy and timid when he doesn’t have a yeerk in his head. Kyle? Kyle can’t keep a train of thought for five seconds. I respect that about him, I relate to him. He’s also got a big spy thing. I want to be Sherlock Holmes and he wants to be James Bond.

<Still a wimp,> David coughed.

David is the kind of person who calls people wimps. We don’t always get along.

<He’s trying. You’re not.>

“I’m with Kyle. David, please. The tough guy act gets old fast.”

<I’m the brains of this outfit! Jake just doesn’t trust me.>

“You’re not as smart as you like to pretend. Or as sneaky.”

<That’s Kyle’s job. And my dad’s. MY job is to be the awesome one and shoot yeerks with cool alien lasers and break the rules. I’m the loose cannon.>

I coughed. “I’m waiting for you to turn to Nissim and say ‘no offense.’”

<Nah, he gets it. I’m cool.>

With the most sudden of predatory movements, Tobias pecked one of the Merlins. David chirped in anger. <HEY! Watch it!> He paused. <How’d you know which one was me?>

<You’re twitching your head in tune with your thoughtspeak. I’m gonna have to teach you three about subtle communication. Otherwise, if you ever have to use thoughtspeak from an anonymous distance, something could give you away. _Savvy?>_

David swore in English. I felt almost sorry for him. English cursing is so… limited. So repetitive. In Russian, I’ve read that you can use curses to replace full syllables in words! Someday I’ll have to learn how to do that. And he was still swearing. This kid didn’t have any imagination. It was all heavy metal words my mom wouldn’t like, but nothing that could hit as hard as it should have. Korean swears are just a pile of homophones in comparison, but it’s not as repetitive as it is in English. And there’s some that I don’t think English even has. He could have used them. My dad certainly does.

I’m sorry. I read a lot.

<Ignoring him.> Tobias turned to me. <Do you want to get going? I’m hungry as a space worm, I had to leave early to pick up these two. All I got was a baby mole and they’re not very filling.>

“Actually, I anticipated that. Like, if you couldn’t hunt. Here! I really don’t want to forget this. Or it’ll stink.”

I presented him a ring box with a dead rat inside, a big one with taupe fur and a flattened head.

Tobias recoiled in disgust. I keep forgetting how long a bird’s neck actually is, but I suppose when you think about it they have to reach most of their body with their beak to preen. <Where’s _that_ from?>

“Basement of the shop. It was a wire trap, not a poison trap. I killed it with a hammer an hour ago. Should still be warm.”

_<NO_. A million times no.>

I laughed. “You some kind of, like, fancy city slicker bird? It’s a perfectly good rat.”

<Exactly the opposite. I eat organic. Household rats are full of rat poison. It doesn’t really kill them. It stays in them and it makes me sick and I’m not gonna touch that thing.>

I threw the box into the alley with a decent softball pitch. “Lovely. One for the stray cats, I guess.”

<You know they sell these guys for food at pet stores, totally clean, all frozen and everything. David has a snake. He should be able to vouch.>

<I do. And I’ll buy him a whole buttload of mouse burgers if he lets me either demorph so I don’t get stuck as a stupid tiny bird, or acquire that bitching eagle so if I get stuck, it’ll be something awesome.>

<It has been twenty-two minutes.> The merlin wearing a watch shook its leg. I had to assume that was Nissim. It was his voice, which, when I met him, I had never expected would be so, you know… high. And squeaky. <I know the time limit has you frightened, but we _all_ have to worry, and you’re not the only one.>

<I look out for number one, slug-boy.>

<Hey!> Kyle snapped. One merlin pecked at the other.

Tobias gurgled in his throat and gripped his talons into the picnic table. <I swear I will turn this car around, kids.>

“Should I be a merlin, or a pigeon?” I interrupted. “I acquired a pigeon at the bus stop. Got him into the corner.”

<Why don’t we ever use pigeons?> Kyle asked. <They’re so much quieter than seagulls. More unobtrusive.>

<And less gullible.> Tobias huffed. <They’re filthy. They’re gonna give me some sort of pollution flu or something if I acquire one. And I think the flock instincts are gonna be a little too much. At least the “searching for food” thing gives the seagulls a good skill in recon.>

<Sounds like the suicidal absence of a plan,> Kyle offered. <Tobias would just wanna hunt you.>

“I’m not Rachel, Kyle. I know better than to run in with the suicidal absence of a plan.”

<Don’t knock Rachel’s plans. She at least tries to _do_ things. She just doesn’t like to stand around talking. Speaking of which, you four little merlins wanna get in the air? There’s thermals. I’m tired of standing and talking. I’m hungry.>

“Thermals? You people don’t do any planning. Forecast calls for Santa Ana winds.”

Everyone but Tobias stiffened. He’d weathered worse, surely. But also he was so much bigger than the others.

<I suppose that’s why Jake asked me to do it today. We need… we need you ready for combat. At all times. But also, if there’s a Santa Ana wind on a mission we need to ride through it.>

“Hey, no time like the present.”

<I’ll race ya.>

Kyle whistled. <Let’s Wallace and grom it.>

Only Nissim laughed.

Then he noticed none of us were laughing. <You humans need to watch some better animated films. Benjamin has them on VHS, come over sometime. It’s the best thing since flying.>

I had already started morphing. This one was the grossest one yet. I don’t know if they’ve told you, but morphing is absolutely horrifying. It scares me because I’ll never get to the bottom of why. This time, several of my teeth fell out while my beak grew in. The lack of pain was a relief, but I still heard all the boys recoil in disgust.

<Wimps,> I said as I continued to shrink. <Once I’m done, help me pick up these teeth. They’ll scare my mom to death seeing random teeth on the back porch. Just… they’d better be there when I demorph. _There in my mouth.>  
_

We picked up teeth in a gross sort of silence, the five of us, and hid them in the flowerpot. I’ll have to say this: I was _itching_ to get aloft. I had so much energy, and I was so light!

I told them as much and we prepared to take off. I got ready to hop and spread my wings. Anyone watching wouldn’t notice one more merlin than when they started, I hoped.

<The tooth fairy can’t come if you’re still awake,> Kyle volunteered. And off we flew.

The sun shone, the pavement sparkled with hot mirage air. The air conditioners roared. And with my tiny merlin eyes, I saw everything and everyone on the ground. I’m sure you’ve read about thermals from the Animorphs who turn into bigger birds. When you’re something as tiny as a merlin, they can knock you over if you’re not prepared for them.

We flew past K-town across Wilshire, unobtrusively. We were a tiny flock of merlins being stalked by a red-tailed hawk ninety feet above and behind us.

<Bank port.>

We all in choreography turned left, except for David. He didn’t seem to care that we’d all gone the other way. This kid.

<David, you moron, port is left. Your other left – now you’re headed straight towards a bunch of power lines.>

David broke off and flapped extra hard to catch up with us.

<See, this is why Jake asked me to do this. You can’t screw up in combat. You know this.>

We did a few more banks in tight spots, some loops, and we practiced tracking the tops of people’s heads for half an hour. Which was surprisingly tricky! You don’t have a face to go by, just a bald spot! And we had it easy getting to pick the guy with a loud suit or a bald spot, in other situations we’d have to keep our eyes on controllers trying to be inconspicuous, and we’d have to be spinning inconspicuously, looking like you were scanning for something else. David and Kyle had far too easy a time noticing the other Animorphs when they were being, for all they knew, stalked by birds.

I sighed, trying to make light conversation. <So, I’m sorry I had to arrive to break up the white boys’ club. We’re just missing Benjamin and Jake…>

Kyle laughed. <White? Jake ever tell you he’s Jewish?>

<Huh. Wouldn’t have guessed. How’d you figure that out?>

<My mom wanted to make me read ‘Ulysses.’ And I asked the rest of the team who knew anyone who’d read it, and Jake’s mom and dad apparently love the book.>

Nissim piped up. <I’ve heard it’s grand. One of human literature’s most modern and experimental things. It’s very big, though, and the grammar is strange. Even a translator chip won’t help.>

<It’s Dublin.> Kyle continued. <She’s a writer. Jake’s mom. And apparently, like, one of the main guys is Jewish and it comes up a lot. So that’s the part he knew, and he told me he was Jewish.>

<Clutch,> I whistled. The sun was starting to beat down.

<Jewish just like Rachel’s dad,> Tobias butted in with a laugh. <Which means I’m the only proper, like, blonde-haired-blue-eyed-pillsbury-doughboy-pedigree-dude who was at the construction site that night, and I ended up not even being human. So someday if they make a movie about us, there’s gonna be some racist yelling about it on the world wide web who acts like I just did that to spite him. Only white goy on the team at the time, and instead I end up being a _bird.>_

<I hope he dies mad,> I laughed. <Some people can’t let an accident go.>

<Totally an accident. _Totally._> Kyle muttered under his breath.

Tobias made a noise through thoughtspeak that sounded like he was grinding his teeth.

<Kyle,> I hissed at him privately. <I think he’s still sensitive about that.>

<I hate to sound like David, but everyone’s being sensitive when I tell the truth. Except I actually tell the truth instead of just saying things to be mean.>

<So,> I chirped with my tiny little merlin mouth, a very obvious “hey let’s change the subject,” <how did the B-team end up starting out as three middle-class white boys and an alien? What are the odds of that?>

Kyle laughed. <Jess… they told you they were going to the mall together, right? The mall is the ethnic melting pot of the nineteen-nineties. WE, David, and me, and Ben and Nissim, we met at a table in a school cafeteria. _A school cafeteria table._ The most segregated space west of the Mississippi, by race and gender and economic stratum.>

<Stratum?> David retorted. <Now who’s trying to sound smart?>

<It was in Latin class! It’s the singular of strata. Like data and datum.>

<You’re saying Data should have been named Datum,> I chuckled, <and that he and Lore together are Data.>

Everyone made a point of refusing to laugh. Tobias coughed like he was afraid to laugh at something that he might be beaten up for.

Nissim pressed on. <You’re the only one of the team who would trust enough to tell me, but why were you at the mall?>

Tobias thought hard. There was a long pause, but judging by the way Nissim banked a little in flight I guessed Tobias had just told something private. He then talked to the whole group. <I had a dream about a hawk. But it turned out it wasn’t a dream because it was me and I told myself in the past. It’s a really really really long story. And Jake and Marco were there playing video games and Rachel was shopping with Cassie. They were each best friends with the other for all their lives. So it wasn’t a stretch they all followed, like, the white cousins to the mall. Nothing racism-weird about that.>

<Going to the mall isn’t a white thing?> I laughed. <Everything’s so expensive there. And so clean it’s scary.>

<Nah. My family used to do really really white things, like lock me in the closet and drink beer. _That_ was pretty white.>

I had to stay silent at that. I… I really couldn’t complain. My econ teacher said last month everyone was an “optimizing individual,” which sorta means something like “whenever people look at their options, they pick the best one.” And if he was a bird on purpose, being a human must have been _awful_ for him.

<I’m a new person now. It’s fine. We’re all new people. None of us have been birds our whole lives. So stop bickering and treat me like you would Jake, since these are his orders. Practice. It’ll be good for the war.>

Of course, I have no idea if Kyle and David and Nissim obeyed him and stayed quiet, or if they just whispered to each other. I tried to keep my brain occupied by watching the clouds and looking for airborne particulate, stuff to see, stuff to know. Maybe I could learn how the wind moved.

The mountains loomed wide open while we passed the mall and cut over the woods, and all of a sudden the thermals dropped from under our wings. We hadn’t aimed for gaining altitude, and now we were paying the price. Tobias had, but I guess he figured it was too obvious to bear mentioning that we should have done as he did.

We were flapping. And flapping harder than before. There was a cold front in the air out of nowhere and it wasn’t lifting us up anymore, we couldn’t glide. _Yeesh, the weather in this state sometimes._ At least it wasn’t snowing. I could sort of get into a rhythm, my lungs were circular and my wings were strong. David couldn’t shut up while he flapped. <You’ll see, girl. Someday. Someday I’m gonna acquire like the biggest bird ever. Bigger than Rachel. A swan. Or one of those birds in the Arabian Nights that’s like a hundred feet long. And we can rule the world with that morph.>

Tobias chuckled darkly. <Funny. That’s how I felt my first time I tried this body. And I liked it so much I decided to wear it out of the store.>

An uncomfortable silence followed as we flew. Nissim checked the watch. We were still good.

Kyle piped up. <You don’t have to pretend to be Marco around us. You don’t have to be the whole team.>

Tobias put on a fake hurtful voice. <I want to, though. Listen to me. I can even do the voices. “Let’s do it.”>

David chuckled. <You spend too much time alone in a tree with your thoughts.>

Nissim was being characteristically thoughtful. It was like he was picking each word out of a set of refrigerator magnets. Not for the first time, I thought of how rude everyone was to him… <Can you be Jake?> he asked. And somehow his little voice got even higher when he chirped up. It made me want to squeeze him and tell him not to be sad, even though he was only doing it to indicate he was talking to a bird ninety feet higher in the air than he.

We covered the forest equivalent of two more city blocks before Tobias spoke up again, lazily drifting above us.

<Sigh. I’ll give you an order. Can that be Jake? My order is to shut up.>

In silence, we flew on. We were aiming for the rest area in the middle of the park so we could demorph and wait for the winds to start. <If they blow you,> Tobias had said, <I’d rather they blow you over the city than the ocean.> It had gotten a chuckle from David at least. We flew down into a bench in a picnic area in a deserted corner of the National Park with fifteen minutes to spare on Kyle and David and Nissim’s part. They all began melting while I pointedly averted my eyes.

<You okay?> I turned to Tobias and asked. He had been really quiet since Nissim asked and we were the only two birds on the table.

<When Nissim asked if I could be Jake, that hurt a little bit. I’m just gonna stand here with my head under my wing and take a few deep circular breaths with my big ornate bird lungs.>

<Are bird lungs really so complicated? I’m trying to breathe like a track star and I can’t even tell where I’m breathing. It’s like my breath never really stops.>

<Cassie showed me a diagram of bird lungs once and it looked like a blueprint for the Starship Enterprise. I don’t know the half of it.>

<I morphed twenty minutes after them. I’ll stay here a second. I think you were saying something about how we were all new people and I don’t know if you finished the thought.>

He paused.

<I won’t make fun of you, Tobias. I’m just curious. I’m all tiny, look,> I held my wings halfway out and gave a little hop, <and I wanna hear what you have to say, right?>

<I’m… to tell the truth, I’m adjusting to actually meeting new people. Making new friends. I spent a year in the woods. And there were only five people who were allowed to know I still existed. I think I’m out of practice. I haven’t really met anyone since Ax. I feel like a human when I’m around you guys and we’re all talking, and it’s not all about pools this and yeerks that and These Messages. And then I feel like a _hawk_ because a big part of my brain has no idea what we’re talking about. And it’s a bit sad. And I don’t like it. I look so _weak._ Like, why don’t I just paint a verkakte target on my back?>

He sounded like I was about to hit him. Holy crap, everybody in this group was falling apart around me and they couldn’t even notice. I wanted to slap someone, but I had to settle for asking the obvious question since Kyle wasn’t listening. <You can’t ask, like, Cassie to talk you down from these things? Everything you say about her makes it sound like she’s already your therapist.> I’d noticed he would perch next to Rachel and she would stroke him, there was obviously something there, but if I mentioned her, he’d probably stop talking.

He winced. <Cassie knows me too well. We do so much together. I… I can’t trust someone who knows so many secrets. She’s gotten enough secrets for a lifetime just knowing me, much less doing…> he feebly waved his wing. <All this.>

<That doesn’t explain why you, like, can’t be Jake. I only ever see Jake when he’s in battle commander mode. I want to know what you as a friend see in him, why he can’t be…>

<He’s ruthless. He can make the hard choices. He can give an order and it sounds like you should do it. But biggest is that he’s trying to win the war and he’s not scared of us getting hurt. Me? I couldn’t. I’m totally… If I was the one coming up with strategies, they’d never work. Because even though they’re all really great at fighting their way out of trouble, for a year, they were the only five people I had in the entire world. They were my existence. If they were gone, I would just live in a tree and forget how to speak English, there’d be no point. All my plans would be 100% about keeping us from dying, instead of, like, the 50% winning part that Jake’s plans have. His plans are fifty percent not dying and the rest of us fill in the other fifty percent by our own not wanting to die and doing crazy Animorphs plans that always seem to work out in the end. But if the war were over and everything were okay, I’d never want to not see these guys every day of my life just to know I’m still a person. So I can’t lead. I’m too scared of that.>

I cocked my head. <If the war were over, wouldn’t it be public that all this happened? You could do human things and they’d have to accommodate you. You could be a human in a hawk body and people could treat you nice. You could go home.>

<Why would they treat me nice? Humans bully people who look weird, and I’m the weirdest thing on earth. And I never had a home. Now… I have the _sky.>_ He sounded like he was reciting a litany.

I sighed. <I’m gonna demorph now because I have nothing left to say to that.>

<Don’t hug me when you grow your big freaky heavy human arms.>

I chirped a confused query as my human feet appeared normal-sized at the end of my tiny sticklike merlin legs. Confusion at Tobias. Morphing is incredibly confusing, but we were all used to that.

<When you’re not used to them, they’re so long and they just hang there and they don’t fold right. Even if I liked being hugged, human hands and arms look like Freddy Kreuger to me by this point.>

<Maybe if you took falconry lessons.>

<Oh my _God,_ did David say that to you?>

“Whaff?” I said with my beak mouth blob. “I juph haphr the thought pop into my head.”

<That makes two of you.>

I felt with my tongue around my mouth. Awesome. I still had all my teeth.

Kyle held Nissim gently in his hand, walking over to the water fountain on the side of the picnic area. “Anyone see a paper cup? I wanna keep him from drying out.”

Nissim was… he didn’t say anything, but I could hear the sigh reverberate through the air. I’d never been a controller, maybe that’s how I could have so much sympathy for the tiny little guy, and what he probably has to go through. I’m told it’s hell to be a controller if the yeerk isn’t nice.

<You four stay out of trouble. I’m gonna see if there’s any field mice. I’m miles away from my territory and have to look out for eagles.>

I stretched my hamstrings, leaning against the picnic table. Demorphing may heal injuries but it gives you cramps sometimes, since your muscles haven’t broken in yet when you grow them. “What kind of trouble is there?” The sun was out, the winds were due any time, and I don’t think I was wearing sunscreen.

“Lots if you know where to look,” David chuckled. “Do you want Pepsi or Mello Yello? I’m gonna try to slice open that vending machine.”

<b><NO YOU WON’T!></b> the thought-voice carried over what must have been a third of a mile.

David sulked and sat in the shade. “Jess, ask him why I have lion claws if I can’t do anything cool with them.”

Kyle returned, hands cupped and Nissim scooting around the pool of water within like a sea monkey. “You’re not doing it because it’s cool. You’re doing it because no one’s ever allowed to tell you you’re not allowed to do something, and until you were a lion you couldn’t break into vending machines.”

I chimed in. “And I don’t think anyone even asked. You just wanted to break into something. And it sounds really really dumb.”

David folded his arms. “I Offered you a DRINK. That’s called Being Polite.”

“Maybe if it was Coca-Cola instead of Pepsi, I’d be down for you reducing their shareholder profits just a tad. They’re evil.” I giggled.

Kyle burst out in a grin. “Oh man… did you guys know the stuff you can do with coke?”

“I saw Scarface like seven times.”

I snorted. “Of course you did, you splendid blonde _beast."_

“Me?”

I kicked David. “No, the lion and the wannabe golden eagle whose dad works for the U.S. Government. I’m making a Neitzsche joke.”

“I don’t even know who that is, it sounds familiar,” whispered Kyle, “and should I know about it? He wasn’t a Nazi, was he?”

“Nah. Not a Nazi.” David said as if that meant he was automatically a good guy. “He was all about the cool people being lions instead of lambs and taking the Pepsi they want instead of waiting for some government hand.”

“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say you haven’t read a thing he’s ever written.”

_"Ah, _go morph a dog and eat it.”

Kyle wrinkled his nose at David just as I kicked him. “I’m not even Chinese, you not-reading jerk.”

“Reading is for idiots.”

<Reading is how you remember history so you’re not doomed to repeat it,> we heard, as we heard a large bird land on the roof of the vending machine kiosk.

Nissim couldn’t say yes, but he was splashing very affirmatively to the subject. Maybe he was just happy he could finally hear someone.

“What’s so bad about repeating history? Spy Boy and Soy Girl and Slug Bug here know it’s doom to read history textbooks.”

<Alright, David. Just for that, Kyle gets to be a gyrfalcon on the way back. No eagles.>

David opened and shut his mouth. “You and your tiny stripey birds, Kyle. That’s why Jake likes you.”

I sighed. “How did any of you ever get along without a girl to tell you to shut up?”

<Jess, believe me… if he wanted to turn this into a locker room, I’d kick his ass. And then Jake would kick his ass. And then Rachel would kick his ass. But you’d notice.>

I supposed I couldn’t argue with that, could I?

David opened his mouth.

<I will turn into a polar bear and kick your ass if you finish that thought, David.>

This guy definitely knew his bullies. I respected that. Someone around here actually gets things done.

Dangit, I need a polar bear morph. Next zoo trip.

===========

For the next half hour, we flew. Nothing interesting – conversational or otherwise – is worth writing down here. But I may as well say this for the people who don’t live in Socal.

Santa Ana winds. The force of the great basin, getting sucked out into the sea. Scorching hot. And unlike Randy Newman said, they come from the northeast. One of the many blessings of living in America’s… what do you call that little part on a bong that you put the weed into before you light it? The pipe? Living in America’s pipe. Everyone else gets the movies and the music. We just get roasted, and occasionally taken over by aliens.

The air looked slightly too bright. Like it was warning me to turn back.

We all pushed forward instead.

Four merlins and a red-tailed hawk, flapping against the current of the sky.

The first wave hit me like a slug. I’d have to check with Nissim if that was offensive. The wave of air, I wasn’t even looking for it. I thought I had just passed it. And then…

_ **Wa-FOOOOOSH!** _

A full paragraph italicized and bolded onomatopoeia of the wind washed over my head and under my wings.

I was blinking past the dust and hot air it was blowing into my eyes. Third bird eyelids. A bird… birds have their assets. But I was kinda worried about this.

<Tobias?> I cautiously asked. <Isn’t it a bit suspicious that we’re all flying into the wind?>

<Nah. It’ll just look like I’m chasing you. Important thing is you guys learn.>

Some teacher. The force under my wings didn’t seem to lift me much higher than it once did. My wings were so tiny compared to his.

** _Wa-FOOOOOOOSH!_ **

Kyle was at ease, singing Randy Newman. <Rollin’ down imperial highway, big nasty dadadada side… Santa Ana winds blowing hot from the north, we was born to ride…>

<THAT SONG ALWAYS MADE ME THINK THOSE WINDS WEREN’T THAT BAD,> David screamed.

I snickered. <Welcome to L.A, mountain man.>

<What, because he’s rugged and handsome?> Kyle shot back at me. <You know that’s hair dye.>

<In case you haven’t noticed,> I shivered, <we’re all birds. Who cares about hair dye? I’ll bet everyone on the team uses it but me.>

<Rachel doesn’t.> Tobias said. He left it at that.

<You wouldn’t mind if she did, though, right?>

<Just be impressed she can get it that perfectly blonde without even bleaching it,>

<Bleach on your heads.> I could hear Nissim trying to wriggle his palps. <No self-respecting controller would feel comfortable putting bleach right next to your own brain. You humans are nuts.>

<I’m a hawk. I can concur they’re nuts.>

** _Wa-FOOOOOOOSH!_ **

<Tobias… you’re a… are you a… is this one of those topics that everybody else has beaten into the ground?>

<Take a hint, new girl, it’s nuts.> David crowed. <Listen to me. I’ll fill you in.>

<Listen to ME,> Tobias whipped back. <A, it’s my life and not yours. I get to tell you as much or as little as I want. Capeesh? And B, I’ve been doing this a year longer than you have. Stop acting like an expert. Jake’s the military expert, Cassie’s the animal expert, Ax is the alien expert, Rachel is the volcano expert. I am the flying expert. We’re headed into high winds and if you listen to me you won’t die.>

David muttered <How did he even hear me?> under his breath. _Had that been private? How was Tobias hearing private thoughtspeak? But Tobias hadn’t rebutted anything specific. Did that mean he hadn’t heard all of it?_

The first wave was over and the second wave was coming.

The air almost seemed like it had been shrunk in an oven. The world was a giant shrinky dink. And we were headed right towards the lightbulb in the E-Z Bake Oven of So-Cal. It was almost like a cavalry charge. It scared me.

Nissim was the happiest in the air I could feel he’d ever been. I wonder how deep the yeerk pool is? Maybe he thought of flying like swimming. I could investigate that, see if I could see any patterns in the way he swam when he sat in the bucket during meetings. So many questions I had. What to ask Tobias while he was in a talking mood, before he lost that spark of conversation he had at the picnic table?

<Rachel does volcanoes?> I couldn’t resist.

<Yeah, long story we had once. Turns out I’m also a dinosaur expert. I’m already a raptor. It’s like getting in touch with the family tree.>

I whispered to him, <Big family?> I couldn’t resist. Nobody else on the team, it seems, had much of a sibling branch that I knew about. Just Rachel and Jake. I wondered what it was like to be that alone. So many only children. I tipped my wings a little so as to drift away from Kyle and Nissim and David.

_ **FFFWWWWOOOOOOM!** _

<Only child and… orphan. Orphan is the right word. I met my dad once before he died. On the advice of the team, I’m never to tell you guys on the team who he was or when that was. But he was pretty famous. He stopped by in town and had me. I never knew him growing up.>

By his standards, that must have sucked. I can tell a coverup story and made a note to pry more as he continued. <Your family, sometimes I wondered what it’d be like to have a sibling to. Someone to talk about things with.>

<You can’t ever get away from them,> I sighed. <Doesn’t make it very easy to slip out and do animorph things.>

<It also means they can’t get away from you. Even if you got stuck in a morph. They’d find you. And you’d find them. And it means your parents have more to worry about than your present whereabouts, isn’t that more freeing than Cassie has? Two parents to worry about only one kid?>

<Jess, I don’t know if that last message about getting away from anyone is private,> Kyle said, <but I picked it up.>

I winced. <Apph. Sorry, Kyle! I’m still figuring out how to send. I think I was just thinking of you when I sent it and didn’t mean to send it to you too and->

<Scupper.>

Tobias’ tone of voice sounded like there was a bomb on the hillside we’d have to avoid.

I was about to ask what a scupper was, and then I felt it. It was like a wave of air, crashing downward. Like a folded piece of paper in the sky. It’s… you’d have to fly for me to describe it right.

How did anybody think like this? Three-dimensional ocean currents, with no surface. Maybe outer space is the surface. My merlin body was instinctively at home with how to flip through this wind.

My merlin body wanted to go through this on instinct. Autopilot. It wanted the wheel.

I refused.

I was a person.

I don’t do instinct. I THINK.

Scared as I was, I couldn’t see a way not thinking would be less scary.

And I choked.

_ **FWWWOOOOOOM!** _

A cramp in my wing before they folded out, and my other wing caught a jet of air. It hit me like a bullet and sent me spinning down.

Down down dowwwwwn like a washing machine.

<SOUND OFF!> Tobias asked. <Who’s still up?> As I spun I could see him coming for me.

<Kyle!> <David!> <Nissim!> they all said at once.

Apparently his hawk brain understood Boolean logic (at least I think that’s Boolean?) because the next thing he said was <JESS!>

I fell. The wind was pushing me backwards, past Tobias. It was like I was being blasted downriver and everyone else was still up there fighting the current. But Tobias…

Bless his heart, he came racing in after me. I was scared to death. He’d probably seen this before.

He’d probably been in my shoes.

This was, I’m ashamed to say, a post-event analysis. All I saw through my merlin eyes was a maelstrom of detail – too much detail – as my head spun. Everything was too in focus. The merlin wrestled control from me in the confusion. And there was a hawk headed – no. A trick. A hawk thrice my size headed straight for me. Even spinning I could see it.

The merlin was startled. Startled by the hawk.

Predator! Too close!

FLY!

And in that panic I caught a rise of wind.

<I got it!> I yelled to Tobias. “I got it,” I whispered in my own head to the merlin. He didn’t care. He was still panicked.

“It’s okay.” I tried to stroke my own brain. “Hawk is friend. Hawk is good.”

From his reaction, I could tell “friend” and “good” were concepts beyond the cognitive capacity of a bird so tiny. He didn’t let up.

<Uh, Tobias? I’m piloting this guy with instinct, and he’s scared of you. Could you bank back up?>

<I’ll back away. But he’ll have to get used to me sometime. I’m gonna be like this tonight when I brush my teeth.>

I’ll admit, I chuckled, and that helped calm the merlin down. I don’t know if they can laugh, but maybe he was curious what I was doing.

** _FWWOOOOOOOM!_ **

It took almost half an hour of hard flapping for me to rejoin them, running in place like the Red Queen, upon which Nissim held up his watch and said we had half an hour to find a safe space to demorph. Poor guy. It looked like making the child yell “adult swim” when the pool does adult swim.

<Let’s just head home,> said Tobias. <We have twenty minutes until we reach the farthest house IF we have the wind at our backs. And we will.>

<Altitude is speed, right?> I said.

<Altitude is speed.> He all but smiled.

We sliced onward over the overpass, nearing Kyle and Benjamin’s subdivision.

<So did it cost you any time, not knowing which of us went down?> Nissim said. I think they were worried about me. Which was touching but made me laugh.

<It shouldn’t have.> Tobias made a long sighing noise. <I’m telling Jake that Cassie and Marco are hard enough to tell apart, but you guys have _got_ to get some more distinctive flight morphs.>

<GOLDEN EAGLE!> David yelled in a victory whoop. _<Gol! Den! Ea! Gle!>_

<Not ‘till you’re twelve, son.> Tobias hissed.

Kyle laughed slightly. <Was that a reference?> I shot towards him.

<Uh, yeah, haha. It’s from “Willy Wonka.”>

I frowned out the side of my beak in my head. <I’ve only seen it once.>

<We’ll watch it sometime.>

We approached a row of green-lawned suburban homes. Luckily they had straight roads, so I didn’t get all tangled looking at them.

<Well, this is Kyle’s house.> Nissim said, before sinking down and chirping a goodbye, as (presumably) Kyle nodded goodbye and flew down, singing softly to “himself.” <Roll down the window, put down the top, crank up the Beach Boys baby, don’t let the music stop…> and it faded as he flew down. <…we’re gonna ride it till we just can’t ride it no more…>

They both sank down into the subdivision towards the same house. I assumed he was holding Nissim in some water until Benjamin came over. I didn’t need to ask. No mysteries there.

David flipped back and swooped towards a different subdivision, the one with all the pools in the backyards. Kyle still hadn’t turned into a gyrfalcon. Perhaps it was out of courtesy to David. Both merlins. Maybe I was overthinking this…

**_No._** No such thing. If I hadn’t overthought my Sharing friends, I’d never have been able to do all this.

<Jess?> Tobias asked. <This is your neighborhood but I don’t know what your house looks like from above.>

<Uh, see the yellow striped awning? In the building left of that, and the stairwell’s in the back.>

My own balcony. It felt unreal. I ducked back behind the scrim and the laundry rack and tried to demorph as quickly as I could. Fastest four hours and some that I’d ever used up, but it lasted forever…

Some days demorphing is like taking off a hair ribbon and letting your hair fall down. It didn’t take effort. It looked really gross! And it felt big and clumsy to be so tall and glued to the ground. But after a couple of minutes, Tobias felt satisfied and moved to fly off. I gnashed my teeth at him first to show him I’d grown all my teeth back.

I couldn’t thoughtspeak to him anymore, so I waved. He’d said enough.

He apparently thought so too. He flew without so much as a backwards glance. (Which in his defense is hard for a bird of prey while flying in a straight line.)

That… that was a workout. I felt rushed.

If this is what a battle feels like, I can’t wait. I stretched my limbs and reached for the doorknob and… the door was locked.

Awesome. No one was home. That’s also good.

I checked under the mat. The key I’d slipped there for myself had fallen through the slats, apparently.

_Crap._ Now I’d be paranoid someone tries to break in with it. But… it could have come from any of the houses above us, too, right?

Too tired. Just… catch my breath, then I’ll either walk down and get the key, or be a cockroach and slide under the door. Maybe I’ll be able to tell how the roaches are getting in. Science paper tomorrow morning. Human problems. They wouldn’t question the time I’d been gone.

I can say this in favor of bird problems – human problems make you feel dead. Bird problems, at least until they kill you, make you feel alive.

_Tobias, teammate, you’ve gotta write a philosophy paper one of these days._ You’re like my mom. No parents, no siblings, you gave up everything to try another country and live there, for all you knew, forever.

I’m not an emigrant to your country, I’m just a tourist and I’m still learning the language.

How do people do this their whole lives? Living in crazy strange unfamiliar worlds that could drive their brain nuts if they stopped to think about it? Do they just… not think?

Wow. I’d rather be actually dead than not think.

I blinked. The dust was gone somehow. Maybe my merlin would be all dusty next time I morphed it.

I closed my eyes instead. Closed them like only a human can. And the alley disappeared into a cacophony of barking dogs and a garbage truck loading a dumpster and sparrows on the roof. I sat there a couple minutes catching my breath. No winds in my eyes. No snarky comments from the boys around me. No one who acted like I didn’t belong. It was relief.

I opened my eyes and casually brushed aside the laundry rack. And good thing, too. Or… very bad. Very good that I’d set up the laundry rack to block people’s views. Bad that I brushed it aside, and I was so intent on demorphing with time to spare I hadn’t even noticed she was outside. Mrs. Park sat on her balcony opposite ours, sitting on the white plastic chair. Fanning herself, drinking a diet coke, reading another pamphlet from the Protestant church down the street. Every time I looked at her clipped hair and judgemental mouth and tacky polyester floral eighties dress, I hoped I wouldn’t turn into her when I grew up, and acted like I knew all the answers…

The movement of the laundry rack caught her eye, and she called out to me in Korean with her cutesy and clippy and way-too-fast Busan accent. “<<Ji-Sun! How long have you been there? I didn’t even see you open the door.>>”

“A while!” I said in English because I’d forgotten the words. “<<I’ve been out here some time!>>”

“Me too! The eeokeon-i, broken!” Her air conditioner. “I out here, but I not see you! You did see the…” she started in English and searched for the words. “the mae?”

I puzzled. The every… the quite?

“<<There was a mae, a maengomryu. With a red tail.>>”

Ah. Bird of prey. My parents only ever used the full word. Not one I encountered often. “<<Was he just here?>>”

“<<On your railing. A meter away from you.>>”

“<<Maybe he’ll get some of those pigeons on your roof.>>”

“<<Maybe.>>” She chuckled.

We both sat back, the conversation over. You’d think she’d respect “good old fashioned Korean secrecy,” but she could well join the Sharing tomorrow, so I couldn’t imply anything. But now I’m stuck out here until she goes inside so she won’t see me not get up. Someday I’d learn to lie instead of just deflect.

That’s something I hadn’t even considered about Tobias. People staring at you, because you’re a hawk, you catch their eye.

And another reason for David not to be a giant golden eagle. People would notice him being weird. Cover blown.

Covers. They’re so exhausting. How do spies do this?

How does the A-team? I barely even know them. I have to count them on my fingers. This guerilla force isn’t really the tiniest one in the world. I’m number eleven. Eight humans, two aliens, and a bird, I thought, shifting, leaning on the picnic table, looking bored, until I could tell she was looking away.

I don’t know. I think if we were all humans or all aliens or all birds, we’d never be able to do anything of note… we’ve gotta listen to each other. The guys who have been here since before the beginning, and the people who just learned today. Kyle keeps pointing out things the veterans miss. I keep pointing out how someone’s gonna interpret something. I overthink. But I also listen.

_Maybe that’s how we get perspective._

That and flying. Flying is nice.

**Author's Note:**

> "Jess" is a nickname for her full name, Ji-Sun Kim. I don't think it'll ever come up as such. But I'm fascinated by her - anyone who can do the math and say "all these creepy people are in the Sharing, there's something going on" gets my salute. And since the Animorphs never had much of an... intellectual presence, shall we say? No one was the team nerd on every topic, no one said "According to my re-SEARCH..." But she's also not an intellectual nerd. She's a track star and a prober and so many things besides. She's fun and I'm finding her voice.
> 
> My Korean isn't great and my grammar is hangdog, but I can create broken-English-as-spoken-through-Korean pretty easily! I finished off a bottle of makgeolli as I was writing that last bit. (I went to high school in a Korean neighborhood and picked up a lot; and my sister's Korean ex-boyfriend admitted my pronunciation was better than his. Not to brag.) Applegate missed her chance at writing about the pitfalls of being an Animorph in a more densely populated neighborhood and/or a larger family (Rachel and Jake have four in the house, more than any of the others in the B-team, even).
> 
> Also… ONOMATOPOEIA. It’s so much fun!


End file.
